View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2021

The majority had dedicated more time to guiding the portfolio companies through the pandemic. . Kent Bennett from Bessemer Venture Partners spoke to this initial slow down: “ We couldn’t do anything until we understood the new normal. Hearing this feedback, we questioned potential implications for first-time entrepreneurs.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Cofounder Early Stage Seed Stage 352

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Sharing these pricing expectations early with potential lead investors fundamentally qualifies your conversations, but it also runs the risk of prematurely losing a potential financing partner, or else it can reduce options to maximize your fundraise outcome. Lower-Than-Market Value. Market Value.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Genuine VC

JULY 10, 2012

There are essentially two distinct basic strategies for startup entrepreneurs to raise a seed round of capital: Subscription approach – An entrepreneur sets a structure (usually a convertible note) and recruits individual angel investors who subscribe to the round, all without a term-driving lead investor.

Syndicate 207

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Portfolio 207

BeyondVC

JULY 7, 2010

Little do people know that when Dawntreader first funded Dali Media along with Impact Venture Partners and Primedia Ventures that the company was called Dali Media and then Metapa, standing for media to all places. After all these years, I am glad to see that EMC and others have caught on to both of these facts.

Portfolio 109

Portfolio Open Source Architecture Database 109

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. I think there’s some truth in this. How Do You Know if a VC is Engaged?

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

BeyondVC

JULY 7, 2010

Little do people know that when Dawntreader first funded Dali Media along with Impact Venture Partners and Primedia Ventures that the company was called Dali Media and then Metapa, standing for media to all places. After all these years, I am glad to see that EMC and others have caught on to both of these facts.

Portfolio 109

Portfolio Architecture Open Source Database 109

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2011

If you’re in LA and looking for somebody to do project-based marketing jobs – Jacqui’s your lady (not to mention a fellow UCSD alum!). We’re almost always the lead investor and usually the most active, too. We didn’t want this section to be our recommendations but those of our portfolio. Sadly, I couldn’t get there.

Early Stage 260

Early Stage Lead Investor Portfolio Partner 260

Babbling VC

DECEMBER 5, 2010

We overlooked doing extensive market research. More specifically, we did market research in the wrong place. Technically, co-investors would fall under the "People" heading above but here I'm focussing more on the funds themselves and not specific partners or people at that fund. . We never led rounds.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Europe Portfolio Germany 76

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 10, 2022

In industry terms, I’d call this a “miss/loss,” which VCs tend to not write about for obvious reasons (I’ve got a whole other rant on the fake performative anti-portfolio lists — Bessemer’s aside). and we also had a great relationship with the partner. I can’t say we have major regrets here though — Susa has been a great partner.

Cofounder 88

Cofounder Founder Acquisition Startup 88

David Teten

JULY 12, 2017

When I meet with other VCs, family offices, and other institutional investors, the most common question I get is: “What are the highest-potential companies in your portfolio which are raising now?” We see our potential coinvestors in four primary buckets: 1) HOF Capital ’s own limited partners. Fundraising is burdensome.

Syndicate 60

Syndicate Syndication Institutional Investors LP 60

www.readwriteweb.com

MARCH 7, 2011

Bryce Roberts , a partner at O?Reilly Based on my experience as the co-founder of StartupDigest , I believe that the startup investing industry is quickly being organized more like the public investing market, and what we are seeing now is a battle of two major investment theses: the index approach and the concentrated investment approach.

Technical Review 50

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Angel Investor 50

Rob Go

JULY 17, 2014

It shows that things are working and there is product/market fit, but there is a long way to go towards building an enduring company of great consequence. For a seed stage venture capital firm, product/market fit comes down to two questions. 1) How is the portfolio performing? This leads to the second factor. Twitter ).

Seed Stage 69

Seed Stage Early Stage Due Diligence Liquidity Event 69

Feld Thoughts

JULY 28, 2014

As a partner in one of the most visible VC firms in Colorado and an LP in many of the Colorado VC firms, I’ve never heard from Matthew or anyone from the SBIC. The booming IPO market proved the model of investing in new companies, as some SBICs cash out at attractive levels. “Then when you dig into it, there were some problems.”

SBIC 142

SBIC Venture Capital Colorado SBA 142

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

If we assumethe average startup runs for 6 years and a partner can bear to beon 12 boards at once, then a VC fund can do 2 series A deals perpartner per year. In the future, angel rounds will less often be for specific amountsor have a lead investor. forstartups was to find one angel to act as the lead investor.

Startup 93

Startup Valuation Non-Compete Deal Flow 93

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

This is one of the reasons why the best practice for a startup is to raise investment rounds from different lead investors rather than simply doing internal rounds, even if an internal round requires less work. In both cases, the correct goal is to partner with the CEO to help the company achieve its goals.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 1, 2021

Construction is a trillion-dollar market, but planning remains complicated and inaccurate. ICAS® can then be scaled up across the customer’s portfolio bringing enterprise-wide benefits. Our customer engagement has been solid, as has our engagement with partners. But we’re learning to adapt!

Technical Review 110

Technical Review Founder Saudi Arabia Cofounder 110

View from Seed

MAY 29, 2019

Today, we are seeing less syndication of seed rounds and sharper elbows among many of the funds in the market. This post will try to describe why this is happening and what repercussions are for founders and investors. Similarly, the seed market is beginning to look like this too. These two forces go hand in hand.

Syndicate 267

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Cap Table 267

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

First, if the VC does 15-20 of these under one partner then it is certain he can’t spend any time with these investments. They don’t mind being the lead investor on deals that they seeded. Their entrepreneurs are evangelical about how great it is to be part of True’s portfolio. And they don’t.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

View from Seed

AUGUST 26, 2015

(And although this is written for angel investors, I think entrepreneurs can only benefit by increasing their knowledge around these investors and hope you’ll continue reading if that’s you. And if you just want to learn about different types of angels and what motivates each, my partner David has written about that before here.).

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Angel Investor Software Review Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 26, 2015

(And although this is written for angel investors, I think entrepreneurs can only benefit by increasing their knowledge around these investors and hope you’ll continue reading if that’s you. And if you just want to learn about different types of angels and what motivates each, my partner David has written about that before here.).

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Angel Investor Software Review Silicon Valley 120

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

The first panel will focus on public markets and will discuss the use and effectiveness of social media tools and data mining technologies in harnessing the wisdom of crowds to generate investment ideas. Howard Lindzon is Co-Founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information.

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

× At Greylock , my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time. Investors see a lot of pitches. we had no revenue.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

David Teten

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

The venture capital industry is continuing its evolution from an upside-down pyramid (typically 3-10 Partners, plus some administrative support) to a traditional hierarchical pyramid. Out of 5,923 investment professionals in our dataset, 916 (15.5%) were focused primarily on origination and marketing.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Equity 114

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

In some ways it’s ALWAYS to an investor’s benefit to suggest a potential new investment wouldn’t be competitive to an existing portfolio company, and it’s ALWAYS to the current portfolio company’s benefit to suggest it might be. How does the expansion of firm mandate change incentives for its individual partners?

Early Stage 114

Early Stage Cofounder Vertical Portfolio 114

Professor VC

JANUARY 20, 2009

From first hand experience, we certainly felt the market conditions and the funding process was much more difficult than anticipated. million from Lighthouse Capital Partners , which ultimately became critical to our balance sheet and they turned out to be a great partner as we worked through the equity financing process.

Venture Capital 28

Venture Capital Silicon Valley San Jose Bootstrapping 28

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

One day I got a call from my two investors, “Hey Steve, we’re both going to be up in San Francisco, lets grab lunch.” I liked my two investors. Steve, we thought we’d tell you this before the board meeting, but both our firms are going to pass on leading your next round.” Our board meetings were collegial and often fun.

San Francisco 333

San Francisco Silicon Valley Limited Partner Venture Capital 333

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

He was raising money initially in the worst market in a decade (we met in 2008), he’s in his mid-40′s, is doing a mom’s site (he has no kids) and he has a JewFro. I think how hard it is for me to be hands-on with a handful of portfolio companies. We talk about all of this in the video. So I thought, WTF?

Valuation 292

Valuation Deal Flow Lead Investor Cofounder 292

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2019

Steve Kelly, Lead Investor; Godfrey Nazareth, President & CEO; and Matthew Maltese PhD, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer The Forrest Four-Cast: March 3, 2019 Fifty diverse startups will aim to impress a panel of judges and a live audience with their skills, creativity and innovation at SXSW Pitch Presented by Cyndx.

Startup 79

Startup Philadelphia Cofounder Distribution 79